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A whole new experience on the blog. Exbeerience?

Today we introduce a new contributor. Nate Muller is an avid home brewer and has generously offered to help keep us informed about what’s happening on the local homebrew scene. While this first story focuses on something his particular homebrew club is organizing, he’ll be reaching out to other clubs as well. Please welcome Nate to the blog.

The ExBEERience Beer Festival

by Nate Muller — senior homebrew correspondent

I have been attending beer festivals for as long as my age has allowed me in the door. Over the years, I have seen beer festivals become bigger, more frequent, and more popular. This is great for a beer lover home brewer like myself, but it also comes with higher prices, fewer tastes, and bigger lines.

In March of 2009, I attended my first ExBEERience Beer Festival and it was like I was in a time warp. It felt like I was back at my very first beer festival. It was small, at only around 150 attendees that year. It had free food! Most importantly, the level of beer geekery was much higher than any festival I had been to in a long time.

ExBEERience is a different kind of beer festival. It’s hosted by the Cascade Brewers Guild–a local homebrew club. The festival is a pure celebration of beer, brewing, and brewers. It will have over 15 professional breweries pouring their favorite beers. But unlike the big festivals, it will also have homebrew, beer judging workshops, and an awards ceremony for the Cascade Brewers Cup, Washington’s biggest homebrew competition.

The 2009 ExBeerience was so inspiring to me, I re-joined the Cascade Brewers Guild and now I’m the treasurer. I hope to see you there on March 12. Tickets are only $25 in advance or $30 at the door. I wouldn’t count on any door sales though. It sold out last year and it should sell out even sooner this year.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..